


Veronica Mars Fic: "Sea Change."

by Lexalicious70



Category: Veronica Mars - Fandom
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 10:24:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4301133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexalicious70/pseuds/Lexalicious70
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Veronica taps the Casablancas’ home to discover if they had any part in the Neptune High bus crash, she makes a shocking discovery about Dick and Cassidy and turns to Logan for help.  Logan must then make the choice to stay silent or to intervene in the dangerous game between the Casablancas brothers and their blackmailer before the events of Cassidy’s life send him permanently over the edge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Veronica Mars Fic: "Sea Change."

Sea Change  
Author: Lexalicious70  
Fandom: Veronica Mars  
Genre: Drama, AU  
Pairing: Dick/Cassidy, implied  
Rating: NC-17 for discussions of rape, non-con situations between brothers, (initiated by a third party,) and some violence.  
Word Count: 8,541  
Summary: When Veronica taps the Casablancas’ home to discover if they had any part in the Neptune High bus crash, she makes a shocking discovery about Dick and Cassidy and turns to Logan for help. Logan must then make the choice to stay silent or to intervene in the dangerous game between the Casablancas brothers and their blackmailer before the events of Cassidy’s life send him permanently over the edge.  
A/N: This is an AU storyline that is set in late season two as an alternate ending to “Not Pictured.” *WARNING* Possible triggers for rape, molestation. Proceed with caution if you are sensitive to these issues.

  
Sea Change  
By Lexalicious70

_Neptune, California. A lot of people who live here think that our town, with its sunny climate, trendy shops, and sparkling backyard pools, is badly named. They say that the sun always shines here, and that it’s nothing like the surface of the cold and desolate planet of the same name or the underwater Roman god who commanded the depths of the ocean, where the sun never shines at all. They say that the sun always shines in our Neptune._

_But there is darkness here. I’ve seen it. It’s always been here, and even the bright rays of the California sun can’t chase away all of the shadows from the town’s darkest corners._

_My name is Cassidy Casablancas. I live in Neptune, California, and every day, I can feel this town’s darkness inching over me, threatening to eat me alive._

The Neptune High bus crash was the biggest tragedy to hit the town since the murder of Lily Kane, the teenage daughter of one of the wealthiest couples in Neptune, the year before. Six kids and two adults were killed in the crash, and grief still cast its shadow on some of the faces that Veronica Mars, Neptune High school student and part-time private investigator, saw in the hallways and out in the courtyard where she ate lunch with her best friend, Wallace, every day. Today, as Wallace plopped down across from her with a sack lunch, he cocked an eyebrow at her smug expression.

“You look awfully cocky for a girl who just ate the cafeteria’s meatloaf.”

“No one is that brave.” Veronica scoffed and leaned forward as her expression grew serious.

“Wallace, I think I know who caused that bus crash.”

“Didn’t your dad want you to leave this alone?” Wallace asked with a squint, and Veronica pushed back her blonde hair.

“Yeah . . . but he also wants me to keep my room clean and wear cheap shoes, and let’s face it, neither of those things is happening any time soon, either.”

“Fair enough,” Wallace shrugged. “So let’s hear it. Who’s your suspect?”

“Kendall Casablancas.”

“Dick and Beaver’s stepmom? The one who’s almost our age?”

“She’s not almost our age. She’s twice removed, if anything.” But the same, yes. Look, ever since Dick Sr. fled the country, she and the boys have found themselves in a serious financial bind. Their mom is in charge of the boys’ trust funds, and Dick told Logan that she’s not willing to sign them over because she’s worried the boys will blow it all before they’re twenty-one.”

“What’s that got to do with the bus crash?”

“This is where it gets interesting. I did some digging, and even though Dick and Beaver have sizeable trust funds, it turns out they’re worth a lot more dead than alive. Each of them is insured for millions. We’ll know soon enough if Kendall is involved . . . I got Logan to plant a bug in the house the next time he’s with her.”

“Oh! Please, do not make me be picturing that!” Wallace said as his mouth screwed up in disgust. Veronica lifted a shoulder.

“Sometimes, even the perverted can be of use. Besides, he owed me a few. With that bug, I’ll be able to get the proof that Kendall killed those kids because she was trying to wipe out Dick and Beaver for the insurance money. With Dick Sr. out of the country and the check coming to this address, there would be nothing to stop her.”

“Wouldn’t that money go to Dick and Beaver’s mom?” Wallace asked with a squint and a cocked brow, and Veronica shook her head.

“Not since the divorce, and you can take that to the—well, you know. As strange as this sounds though, I don’t think Kendall is as dumb as she looks. Or sounds. Or . . . anything else. I’m pretty sure she knew that it was only a matter of time before Tricky Dicky’s financial magic tricks caught up with him. She must have been planning this for a long time.”

“But would she really kill all those kids just to try and take out her stepsons?”

Veronica pursed her lips.

“I don’t know. But that’s what I’m going to find out. If Kendall is our killer, she’s bound to spill about it sooner or later.”

 

Later that night, Veronica shut herself in her room after her father had left on a date with Wallace’s mom. With Backup snoring blissfully at the foot of her bed, Veronica took out her mini recorder and the remote device for the bug she’d given Logan.

“Come on, Kendall, give me something I can use,” she sighed, and pushed the button that would activate the speakers. There was a lot of background noise, a brief squeal, and then a series of shuffling noises. Footsteps, maybe? Veronica wondered where Logan had placed the bug. He had told Veronica, (over her protests of TMI,) that Kendall preferred the guest bedroom when she entertained him, so that was most likely where he had planted it.

 _“I can’t do this anymore, Dick,”_ a voice said suddenly, and Veronica sat up with a frown. The voice belonged to Cassidy Casablancas, Dick’s sixteen-year-old brother, a slight, blonde, and almost pretty boy with sleepy grey eyes and a pouty mouth. Most people at school called him Beaver, a name that Dick had given him, (though the reason was a mystery,) and Veronica knew that Cassidy hated it. If Logan had planted the bug in the guest room, what were Dick and Cassidy doing in there?

 _“We got to do it, Beav,”_ Dick replied in a tone that Veronica had never heard him use before. He sounded old and weary, as if he had said this to his brother many times before. _“You know we do.”_

 _“I can’t,”_ Cassidy replied, and his boy’s voice seemed to strangle on tears. There was a sudden scuffling noise and a thud, and Cassidy gave a yelp. Veronica frowned; she knew that Dick had just pushed the smaller boy into the wall.

_“You’re doing it, and you’ll shut up about it because you know what’ll happen if you don’t! Do you want to go to jail? Cos I don’t!”_

_“No,”_ Beaver murmured, and Dick’s voice gentled.

 _“Good.”_ A pause. _“I mean . . . come on, Beav. You remember what he said.”_

Veronica frowned and listened harder. "Who? Come on boys, give me a name!"

 _“I know what he said.”_ Cassidy sounded sullen and tearful. _“And I’m the one he tried to kill, so I know what he’s capable of!”_

Veronica stiffened and put a hand to her mouth.

_“Then why would you take the chance of calling his bluff, Beav? The dude is totally twisted, and he’s got us both by the balls. He’ll kill us both and everyone we care about before he does. You want that, huh? You want Mac or Kendall to die like those kids on the bus did?”_

_“No!”_ Cassidy replied in a frightened voice, and Veronica heard a series of vague plastic clicking sounds. Some kind of equipment being set up? What were these boys doing, and who was making them do it?

 _“Time to get to work, Beaver. Can’t be late with the delivery.”_ More odd noises . . . the rustle of clothing? What—

There was the sudden unmistakable sound of bedsprings a moment later as someone tilted the mattress with his weight, and Veronica’s stomach clenched. Then, a muffled thump, as if something had been tossed on top of the bedspread.

 _“He gave me this for you to use this time,”_ Dick said.

_“Please don’t make me, Dick.”_

_“I ain’t making you! We been through this! He’s making you! We got not choice!”_

_“Dick, please, I can’t,”_ Cassidy groaned, and Veronica’s intestines seemed to turn to iced slush inside her belly at the fear in his voice.

 _“You got to, Beav. Look, I read about it online and it looked pretty straightforward,”_ Dick said, and there was a decidedly plastic click. _“Use this. Come on, bro, we don’t got all day. You know he likes it right at eleven sharp.”_ A pause. _“I don’t want to make this rough on you, dude, but I’ll have to for both our sakes if you don’t deliver.”_

_“I can’t, Dick! Please, I don’t know how!”_

_“Then you’ll fucking learn while I help you because neither of us have a choice.”_ An electronic, high-pitched whining sound began, and Veronica frowned. Was the bug going wonky? She’d never heard anything like it.

 _“Lie back, Beav,”_ Dick said, and Veronica slapped a hand over her mouth. Her brain could only stutter what what what as she listened, her eyes wide and stunned. The whining noises began to rise and fall, and then Cassidy gave a strangled moan through clenched teeth that was full of such pain that Veronica’s eyes filled with tears. Even though she didn’t know what she was listening to, some kind of primal dread made her insides feel cold and watery. Dick’s voice, unusually gentle and regretful, only increased that feeling.

 _“Don’t look at me like that, Cass,”_ he said, and it was then that Veronica knew what was happening was bad with a big gothic capital B. She had never heard Dick call his brother anything but bro or Beaver, (or the frequently rude variation of either,) but never Cassidy and never, ever, Cass. _“Just—look, just close your eyes, and we’ll be done before you know it.”_

Veronica hit the stop button on the recorder and thumbed off the speaker to the bug. She sat there a moment, unblinking and stunned. She reached out to pet Backup, suddenly needing the comfort. The big pit bull mix sighed and his tail thumped briefly on the bedspread. Veronica looked down at the recorder and then scooped it up in her palm. It was just after nine, and her dad wouldn’t be home for another two hours or so. She had time.

“Hold down the fort until dad gets back,” she said to Backup before she grabbed her coat and ran out.

 

“Kind of late for a visit, isn’t it?” Logan asked after he’d opened his door at the Neptune Grand Hotel, where he stayed in one of its best suites. As a wealthy emancipated minor, Logan had almost unlimited freedom. In Veronica’s eyes, this made him insufferably arrogant at times, but still, she knew that Logan still carried the scars of Lilly’s death and his father’s abuse. Like many oh-niners, he was a kid who had been raised with every material possession in the world, but had been emotionally bankrupted by absentee or indifferent parents.

“Logan—”

“No, let me guess. You’ve quit the PI business and you’re here to sell me some Avon. I hear they have a lovely new skin cream!” He mocked, and started to shut the door.

“Logan!”

He opened the door again. “What? No, wait, let me expand on that. What do you want?” He asked in a flat tone that told Veronica that he had already mentally dismissed her. Frustration pushed tears to her eyes. Logan’s expression shifted. “Veronica?”

“Can I come in or not?” She asked.

“Yeah.” He stepped aside and let her in before he turned off the skateboarding event he’d been watching on ESPN and gestured for her to sit down. Veronica sat, and Logan frowned at the fear in her eyes. Fear on Veronica Mars was not a usual state of affairs.

“You look a little rattled,” he said, and Veronica looked up.

“Have you seen Dick lately?”

“Dick—? Oh, Dick.”

“Yes Dick! Surfer dude Dick, womanizer Dick, head-like-a-melon Dick! How many Dicks do you know in Neptune—wait, don’t answer that. Too easy.” She took a deep breath. “When did you last see him?”

“A few days ago.”

“How did he seem?”

“Seem? I don’t know . . . he was . . . he was Dick! We ate pizza, played WWF on the Xbox, and he asked me for details about the dimensions of Kendall’s—”

“Stop.” Veronica held up a hand. “What I mean is, he didn’t act strange or secretive or anything?”

“He’s Dick, Veronica. His brain is geared for sports, sex, and food, not keeping secrets. What is wrong?”

Veronica set out the recorder on the coffee table in front of them.

“I need you to hear this. It’s what I picked up from the bug you planted in the Casablanca’s guest room.” She turned it on and sat back, her hands clasped in her lap. Logan frowned at the recorder as the conversation began.

“That’s Beaver.”

“Dick’s kid brother,” Veronica nodded, and then squeezed her eyes shut briefly as Cassidy begged Dick no. Logan’s athletic body tensed with every passing moment as he stared at the recorder, and as the high-pitched whining noise started, Logan gave a loud cry of dismay and shock as he jumped to his feet and fumbled the recorder off. His eyes went wide, the pupils eating up the dark hazel of his irises with panic.

“Jesus! Jesus Christ!” He shouted as he pushed his hands up into his hair and grabbed briefly at it. “What the fuck! Christ!”

Veronica looked up at him. “You know what the noise is, and what they’re doing,” she said, and Logan’s wide eyes swiveled around to meet hers.

“You don’t live in the same house with Aaron Echolls for eighteen years without knowing what a sex toy sounds like, Veronica,” he replied in a shaky voice.

Veronica winced. A part of her knew that Aaron had abused Logan physically over the years, but this implication made her stomach turn. She shoved it out of her head. “I don’t know what to make of it, Logan.”

“You don’t know what to make of it?” Logan repeated slowly as he ran a hand through his bristly chestnut hair, making it stand up in crazy spikes. “Dick was . . . he was making Beaver . . . with—” Logan shook his head and paced around the room. “This is nuts! Dick picks on his brother and cuffs him around sometimes when he’s bored, but I know he’d never hurt that kid unless someone was making him.”

“Dick says on the recording that someone is blackmailing both of them. A he. Maybe it’s their father, working with Kendall.”

“Dick says his dad emails him twice a week from some secret server in the Caymans to see how he’s doing. I don’t think he’d be doing that if he were blackmailing his own sons.”  
  
“But Cassidy says that this person was trying to kill him, not both of them. If Kendall or Dick Sr. were behind this, why would they only want Cassidy dead?” She shook her head and stood up. “I’m wrong about Kendall. The person behind this is a he. Who does that leave us with? Who would possibly want to hurt Cassidy?”

“Whoever it is, Dick is afraid of him, and that makes him dangerous. Dick is intimidated by very few people, mostly because he’s too obtuse to know better. This person has him scared, and badly.”

“They talked about a delivery,” Veronica said, and Logan nodded.

“Judging from what Dick said and what happened after, and with some of those noises, I’d say that whatever Dick made Beaver do, they videotaped it.”

Veronica paled. “But why? Cassidy is sixteen! What sick bastard could possibly want . . .” She began to say when she noticed Logan looking at her expectantly. Heat flooded her face. “I didn’t mean . . . Logan, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be. Dad may be a sick bastard and a murderer, but at least he was videotaping the willing and the female.” Logan gave a small, wry smile before he continued his previous line of thought. “There’s only three people who know the truth—Dick, Beaver, and the person who’s blackmailing them.” He paced around the coffee table. “and considering how you found out about this, I don’t think we can just come out and ask them over a friendly game of Grand Theft Auto.”

“Dick talked about a delivery at eleven,” Veronica said. “If we can follow him to wherever he’s delivering these tapes, maybe we can find out who it is he’s delivering them to.”

 

_One Week Later_

Dick’s jeep rolled to a stop at an abandoned pier at Harper’s Beach. This part of the beach, which was rocky and littered with scrap metal from illegal dumping, was no man’s land for someone like Dick, and he shifted in the jeep’s seat as he glanced at the package wrapped in grocery paper that sat in the empty seat next to him. For a moment, he imagined hurling it down onto the rocks and trash at the end of the pier, where the tape inside would shatter. Maybe then he would stop seeing Cassidy’s haunted expression or the bruises on his fair skin every time he closed his eyes. This last time had been especially hard, and when Dick left to deliver the tape, Cassidy still hadn’t roused himself from the guest bed, where he laid nude and moist with lube and his and Dick’s own issue. Dick had spoken to him several times, but Cassidy had only curled up, his knees to his lean chest, his slender, lightly-freckled arms wrapped around a pillow. Dick knew he’d left bruises on Beaver’s wrists and hips, but his kid brother had to understand that it wasn’t anything personal. When a bastard had you by the balls and was starting to squeeze, you did what you had to do to survive. Dick’s pop had taught him that lesson years ago, and his namesake was one of the world’s greatest survivors. Dick had learned well, but this was one time his last name or his dad’s money would get him or Beav out of trouble.

Best just to shut up, and pay the damned piper.

A cocoa-brown SUV pulled up beside Dick’s jeep then, and the right rear window slid down with a muted hum. Dick picked up the package from the seat next to him and handed it over into the darkness.

“You’ve been a good boy, Dicky,” a voice said from inside the SUV. “I like a good boy.”

“Look man . . . these tapes. There has to be something else I can offer you.”

“I’m afraid not. I don’t want any money, and the alternative to me not getting tapes is that you and your sweet little brother go to prison when I tell everyone you caused that bus crash. If Cassidy is having difficulty with this, can you imagine what prison would be like for him? Even juvenile hall has its predators, Dick, and a boy as pretty as your brother would be an irresistible buffet. Trust me . . . I know. At least this way, you can still be involved.”

“What you wanted this time hurt him bad, dude.”

“Better you than a stranger, Dick. Or would you rather try and come out against me and the proof I have?”

“Beav and I didn’t cause that Goddamn crash!” Dick said through clenched teeth. “It was you!”

“Of course. But are you willing to risk a public battle, Dick? Your family is already hip-deep in scandal . . . do you want to add to that by forcing me to tell the world that you tried to bribe me with disgusting underage pornography—that you forced your brother to do, the poor child—in exchange for my silence? Do you want to face that, Dick, or are you going to be a good boy?” A hand offered him an envelope and Dick cursed softly as he took it. Inside was a stack of hundred-dollar bills. “Good boy, Dicky. Share that with Cassidy; buy him some new clothes or some video games. Inside the envelope are also your instructions for delivery for next week. Don’t be late.” The window rolled up before the SUV made a wide turn before it bounced away down the beach.

Dick tossed the envelope of money on the dashboard and slammed his fists against the steering wheel.

“Fuck!”

Up on the wide cliff that overlooked Harper’s Beach, Veronica lowered her binoculars and looked over at Logan. They sat in his yellow Extera, which Veronica thought was about as inconspicuous as a giant jawbreaker in a plate of spinach, but he’d insisted.

“Did you see anyone?” Logan asked, and Veronica shook her head.

“It was too dark to see inside the car. We need to get closer.”

“What do you think was in that package he gave Dick?”

“It was an envelope, I think. Probably money, but Dick looked really upset. If he was taking money for this, why would he be angry about it?”

“Maybe it’s added incentive. Dick said that his mom has the purse strings pretty tight,” Logan replied.

Veronica watched as Dick turned his jeep and headed back toward town before she took out her laptop. “I didn’t see who was in the car, but I’ve got the plate numbers.” She logged on to her P.I. Web site and entered the information. “We’ll follow Dick again the next time he comes out here so we can tail the SUV. In the meantime, I want you to work on Dick and Cassidy if you can. It might be that they want to talk about this but they don’t how to approach anyone. You’re closest to Dick, Logan, so I want you to try, all right?”

Logan folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in the seat as he made a mock-pleasant face.

“So, Dick, have you and Beaver been blackmailed into making any good underage gay porn movies lately?” The expression dropped away into a frustrated scowl. “Yeah. There’s a conversation I can’t wait to have!”

 

After three days of staring at Dick’s phone number on his cell and mentally rehearsing a light and breezy tone, Logan called his friend and suggested a pizza and Halo marathon at the Casablanacas’ house. Dick was a bit more subdued than usual, but agreed to meet Logan at their place in an hour. Logan changed clothes and made sure the mini-recorder that Veronica had given him was working before he slipped it back into the carrying pouch of his cell phone. He felt like a weasel, recording his friend without him knowing, but he also knew it was a means to end if he wanted to help him and Cassidy. After all, obnoxious though Dick may be, he was still Logan’s friend, and Cassidy was just a sweet, awkward kid who didn’t deserve what was happening to him.

Logan couldn’t imagine under what circumstances a person would deserve it.

In light of these thoughts, an hour later, Logan found himself at the front door of Dick’s very spacious house in the very middle of the oh-niner territory. He rang the doorbell, which chimed in a pleasant but almost self-important manner. Dick came to the door a moment later wearing surfing trunks and a multicolored shirt. His blonde hair was more tousled than usual and hung in his eyes. Logan held out two large pizzas.

“I come bearing cholesterol,” he quipped, and Dick nodded as he took the pizzas.

“Dude,” he replied, which was Dick’s usual rejoinder and depending on tone, could register anything from disgust, to awe, to anger. In this case, it was thanks. Logan nodded and followed him inside. Dick flopped down on the couch as he set the pizzas on the coffee table. Logan glanced around; the place was neat and uncluttered thanks to the maids, but from the dent in the couch cushions and the small litter of junk food wrappers and beer cans on the end table, it was clear that Dick had been sitting there for some time. Logan sat down.

“Haven’t seen you much around school, dude.”

“Been kind of busy. You know . . . with dad gone, I got to take care of things around here. The house, and I’ve been looking after Beav.”

“Right,” Logan nodded as he flipped open one of the pizza boxes. He pulled out a slice, hissing in discomfort as some hot filaments of mozzarella dripped over his fingers. He sucked them off and took a bite of the slice. “He around?”

“Beaver?”

“Yeah, Beaver.”

“Yeah he’s around here somewhere, why?” Dick’s tone took on a slightly suspicious edge. Logan lifted a shoulder.

“Usually when he smells pizza, you have to put him in a sleeper hold before you can keep him away.”

“Think he’s sleeping or something.”

“At two in the afternoon?”

“It’s a Saturday dude, and he was probably up all night in his room playing Wizards and Wimps or whatever a mega-dork like him does on a weekend! I said I’m looking after him, I didn’t say I grew a pair of tits to nurse him with!” Dick took a bite of pizza. Logan let a few minutes pass before he tried another avenue of approach.

“Have you seen the papers lately? Goddamn reporters . . . they’re making my dad’s trial a media circus. I’ve even had a few threats made to me over the phone, people saying they’re going to blackmail me. Bullshit though, right?”

“Yeah, guess,” Dick replied through a mouthful of pizza. He glanced up at a rattling in the kitchen as things were moved around in the fridge. Logan got to his feet.

“Need to drain it out,” he said to Dick, and headed for the bathroom. As soon as he was out of sight of his friend, he slipped past the bathroom and went to Cassidy’s bedroom door. It was half open, and Logan poked it open more with his finger. The bed looked extremely lived-in, the blankets and sheets rumpled. The bedside table was stacked with dark graphic novels, PC fantasy game strategy books, notebooks, and a couple of hand-held gaming systems. The 32-inch Sony TV on the dresser played music videos, and Logan glanced to the corner where a round metal garbage can was half-full of wadded-up tissues. Considering what Cassidy was being forced to do in the guest bedroom, Logan concluded they weren’t from the usual alone-time hobby of a boy Beaver’s age, but rather that the youth had spent a good deal of time lately crying.

“What are you doing in here?” A voice said from behind him, and Logan turned to see Cassidy standing there in a pair of shapeless jeans and a rumpled yellow Izod shirt. His short blonde hair stuck out in several different directions, and his sleepy eyes seemed almost bruised. Logan smiled and shrugged.

“I brought some pizza. I thought maybe—”

“You thought maybe I’d be stupid enough to eat the last slice that you and Dick spit in or whatever so you can laugh your asses off when I do? Yeah, no thanks. Shut the door on your way out.” Cassidy flopped down on the bed with a can of Pepsi and pulled the tab on it before he took a few gulps. Logan’s gaze tracked to the irregular oval-shaped bruises on the kid’s thin wrists.

“We screw around, Beaver, that’s all.”

“Don’t call me that,” Cassidy snapped as he opened his laptop. “I put up with it from Dick, but I’m not going to listen to it from his friends.”

“Okay, sorry. Look, Cassidy—”

“I said shut the door on your way out.”

Logan paused and then nodded as he turned and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him. When he returned to the living room, Dick was still eating.

“I guess I’ll be heading out,” Logan said, and Dick raised a hand without even turning around. As Logan walked out the door and down the driveway, he texted Veronica on his cell.

_Nada with Dick and Beav. Any other brite ideas?_

After a few moments, the phone chimed with her reply.

_Sit tite. Still looking into the SUV. B in touch._

“Be in touch. Great,” Logan muttered as he got into his Nissan and slammed the door. To his right, the Casablancas house remained quiet.

 

The television on Cassidy’s dresser droned on and on, switching from videos to music-based reality shows, to the animation block they showed at around nine p.m. This was usually how Cassidy kept track of the time during the hours he spent alone in his room. He rarely got hungry anymore and when he did, he kept bags of chips in his room to avoid having to go out and face Dick. His brother rarely spoke to him anymore, even to tease or humiliate him, and this was somehow worse than how it used to be before, when Dick would go out of his way to give Cassidy an Indian rope burn or trip him on the way to the bathroom. Ever since the bus crash, Dick couldn’t look Cassidy in the eye. Not that Cassidy could blame him, of course. After all, it was his fault those people on the bus were dead. He hadn’t planted the bomb that had killed them all, but he had been the target, one of them, anyway, and now that his would-be killer had both him and Dick under his thumb, forcing Dick to videotape Cassidy performing solo sex acts for him, a swan-dive off a nice, tall building was looking more and more attractive every day.

Cassidy’s cell phone burred softly on his nightstand, and Cassidy glanced over at it without much interest. That lack of interest turned to dread when he saw the number displayed on the caller ID, and he picked it up as he hit the accept key.

“Hello.”

 _“Your last tape made me so hot, my sweet boy,”_ the voice on the other end of the line said, and Cassidy swallowed hard.

“It’s the last one. I don’t care who you tell.”

_“Does Dick say the same thing? Do you think the people you’ll put in danger by defying me will feel that way when their cars blow up, or their houses catch on fire in the middle of the night? Will Mac care when her cell phone electrocutes her the next time she makes a call?”_

“Don’t you touch her!” Cassidy’s hand tightened around the phone until his fingernails went white.

 _“I don’t think you have to worry, Cassy.”_ The voice was smooth, calm. _"I think you know who it is I want . . . and as long as you and Dick are good boys, your friends and family will be safe. Speaking of which, it’s delivery night. Have you made your tape for the week?”_

Cassidy looked over at the package on his dresser that had arrived that morning for him, and he shuddered when he remembered its contents.

“Yeah, course.” He lied, and the voice chuckled.

_“See, you’re learning how to be a good boy. I like that. Maybe after I watch this tape, I’ll reward your obedience with a live session. I’ve never forgotten you, Cassy . . . you’re my special boy. Do you remember? You were spared judgment because you’re my special boy.”_

“I remember,” Cassidy replied, by rote, trying to keep the loathing from his tone. The voice on the other end purred in satisfaction.

 _“Tell Dick not to be late tonight,”_ it said, and then the call ended. Cassidy snapped the phone shut and then looked back over at the box, which contained a number of fetish items.

_I’ll reward your obedience with a live session . . . never forgotten you . . . my special boy . . ._

Cassidy stood up and picked up the box from his dresser. He up-ended it over his trash can, dumping the contests, and then slammed the box down on top of the pile. He then left his room without bothering to turn off the TV. He padded down the hall and to the right, where his father’s room sat untouched, as it had since he’d fled the country. Cassidy knew that few things, if any, had been removed or locked away. He pushed the door open and crossed the plush beige rug to the big marble-veined dresser on the other side of the room. The huge piece of furniture took up half the wall space and boasted twelve drawers. Cassidy opened the last drawer on the bottom right and withdrew a sturdy box wrapped in black Chinese silk. He lifted it, set it on the dresser, and popped open the catch. Inside, nestled in black velvet, was a copper-colored Glock 21 pistol. A small cache of black-and-gold bullets lay snugly by its side. Cassidy picked up the gun and tested its weight in his hand as he thought of how his father had always taken Dick to the firing range on the weekends but had never brought him along because guns were a man’s business, and Cassidy was just a boy.

To his father, he had never been anything but just a boy.

Cassidy slid the magazine from the gun’s chamber. He’d seen his father load the gun enough times that it only took him a few moments to do it himself. He thumbed the safety on and left the silk box on top of the dresser before he carried the gun down the hall to the living room. Dick was still watching TV, his back to Cassidy. The younger boy tightened his grip on the pistol, raised it, and then brought the butt of the gun down on the base of Dick’s skull. Dick made a small noise of surprise and pain before he slumped forward, and Cassidy rounded the couch. He put his arm around Dick’s shoulders and laid him back on the couch. He checked his brother’s pulse and breathing, found them to be normal, and then slipped the gun into the deep pocket of his jeans.

“Sorry bro,” Cassidy said as he went over to the entertainment center and hunted through it until he found the envelope with the money in from the week before. “My turn to make the drop this time.” Dick always kept the stuff that was important to him near the TV. Cassidy hunted through the envelope until he found a small green post-it with the instructions for the next drop-off site.

_Neptune Grand Hotel Rooftop  
11 p.m._

Cassidy checked the time on his cell and then rifled through Dick’s pants pockets until he found the keys to his brother’s Jeep. He paused at the entertainment center and then grabbed a blank tape from the stack on the shelf before he jogged out the door.

Logan was practically dozing in his SUV when the front door to the Casablancas home slammed. He sat up in the driver’s seat and turned to see Cassidy running down the driveway to where Dick kept his Jeep parked. He tossed a VHS tape into the passenger seat and turned the ignition over. Logan frowned.

“Okay Beav, where are you going . . . jeez, does he even know how to drive?” He asked out loud, and then realized that Dick would have to either be dead or unconscious to let Cassidy take his Jeep. He never let anyone drive it, and even if he did, that person certainly wouldn’t be his sixteen-year-old brother. After a few false starts, the Jeep bounced down the hill toward town. Logan started up his Hummer and followed from a distance. Veronica had said to sit tight, but this whole scenario and the intent, almost focused look on Cassidy’s face as he’d climbed into the Jeep told Logan that letting that kid drive off alone would be a mistake.

 

Thirty minutes later, Logan found himself pulling into the parking lot of the Neptune Grand. He pulled into his usual space and watched Cassidy park before the teenager put the VHS tape inside his jacket pocket.

 _Another tape,_ Logan thought to himself. _But why didn’t Dick bring it? And why here? Does the drop-off point change every week? I guess that’s smart, considering._

Logan watched as Cassidy climbed out of the Jeep and then his mouth went dry as the boy reached into his jeans pocket and the lights from the parking lot glinted off the unmistakable shape of a pistol handle. Logan scrambled for his cell and texted Veronica with shaking hands, cursing as he had to backspace four times to fix his typos.

_Bvr has a gun: at NP Grand—go c if Dick is ok—Bvr mite have snapped. Going to follow him._

He slipped the phone into his pocket and then got out of the car as he watched Cassidy push his way through the hotel’s revolving door. Logan followed at a distance until they reached the lobby and the youth vanished into an elevator. Once the doors closed, Logan ran to adjacent elevator and hammered on the UP button.

“Come on, damn it, come on!” He muttered. In the back of his mind, he wondered if Beaver really had snapped and killed Dick for his inability to stop their blackmailer. It was obvious now, though, that whatever Beaver had done to Dick, he was taking action where his brother had not been able to. Logan hoped that Dick was still alive, both because he was Logan’s friend and for Dick’s sake . . . and for Beaver, too.

The elevator doors finally slid open and Logan stepped inside.

_God, don’t let me be too late._

 

The roof of the Neptune Grand smelled like slow-cooled tar, feathers, and old cigarettes. Cassidy let the access door his shut behind him with a click-snap as he glanced around at the square metal housing units for the building’s heating and cooling systems, a few random pipes that led back into the building, and in one corner, a long-dead pigeon, its frail skeleton still surrounded by a drift of grey feathers. Cassidy stared at the pigeon for several moments, envying its stillness, its obliviousness. Footsteps sounded behind him, and he turned.

“It’s my favorite boy, in the flesh.” Woody Goodman smiled his Sunday school smile, the one that had fooled his guileless prey for so long. “But I have to wonder, what is he doing here? Big brother Dick makes the deliveries, isn’t that the rule? Are the Casablancas brothers playing games?” His eyes pinned Cassidy, dark and shiny in the muted moonlight. Cassidy reached into his jacket and pulled out the VHS tape as he tried not to tremble under Woody’s gaze.

“He’s sick. Ate some bad shrimp or something. We couldn’t trust anyone else to make the delivery.” He held the tape out. “But here it is.”

Woody watched the boy for several moments; he knew this one was smarter than the brother and shouldn’t be underestimated. He reached into his pocket and withdrew the weekly incentive money that he always gave to Dick. However, the lure of Cassidy’s presence was almost too much for him to bear. He licked his lips.

“Come closer,” he said. “Bring it here, Cassy, that’s a good boy.”

Cassidy took two steps, the corners of his mouth tightening. The tape rattled in its case as he held it out to Woody. Woody seized Cassidy’s wrist instead of the tape and pulled him close, crushing the boy’s lips with his own. Cassidy gave a muffled shriek of anger and disgust and his hand came up, swinging in a wide arc. He struck Woody’s right temple with the tape, catching the man a glancing but hard blow, the tape sliding out from the case partway and the corner slicing into his skin. Blood flew, spattering the ground and Cassidy’s hand. Woody gave a strangled cry and clapped his hand to his head as he staggered back and released Cassidy’s wrist. Cassidy backed away and pulled his father’s gun from his pocket, holding it tightly with both hands as he flicked the safety off.

“You son of a bitch!” He cried, and Woody looked up, blood streaming between his fingers as he tried to slow the flow of blood from the head wound. When he found himself looking down the barrel of the 32, his eyes widened and his mouth pinched up in fear.

“Cassidy . . . please.” He shook his head and backed away a few steps. “Drop the gun. Don’t do this. I . . . I need help, don’t you understand? I need help.” He whispered, and Cassidy stared down at him, a disgusted sneer curling his lips.

“Help. Help? Yeah . . . I needed help too. Or don’t you remember that I yelled for it every time you touched me, and how you’d put your hand over my mouth and tell me that no one could hear me, to be quiet and be a good boy because no one was going to help me?” Cassidy took a few steps forward and leveled the gun at Woody’s forehead. “Now I’m going to give you the help you need—the only kind that will stop you!”

“Beaver, don’t!”

The younger boy turned at Logan’s shout, and Logan put his hands in the air as the gun swung around to level at him instead. At the same time, Logan saw Woody Goodman kneeling there, and he frowned in surprise that really wasn’t surprise at all. The gun trembled and then steadied as Dick’s little brother glared at him.

“My _name_ is Cassidy!”

“Cassidy . . . don’t. Just take it easy.”

Cassidy’s hands tightened around the gun.

“I trusted him. We all did!” He shouted.

“Woody’s the one who’s been blackmailing you,” Logan said as he glanced at the mayor, who looked back up him with eyes that were wet and shiny in the moonlight. Cassidy’s lips trembled.

“He killed Peter and Marcos! He tried to kill me, too . . . he crashed the bus! We were going to come forward about what he did to all of us, so he killed them!”

Logan’s mind quickly connected the dots. The agony in Beaver’s eyes only confirmed those conclusions. He held out a hand.

“All right. He hurt you . . . I get that, okay? But killing him isn’t going to undo what he’s done. Come on . . . you’re a good kid, and you don’t want to hurt anyone. Hurting him won’t take it away.”

“He killed everyone on the bus! My friends, Bettina . . . he’s been making me and Dick make sex tapes for him!” Tears overflowed on the youth’s long lashes and dripped down his cheeks. “He raped me last summer!”

Logan’s stomach clenched.

“Cassidy—” He began, and then caught movement from the corner of his eye. Woody sprang up like a striking adder and charged Cassidy while his back was turned. He tackled the boy hard, and the gun went skittering away across the roof like a wounded crab. Woody shook free of Cassidy and went after the gun instead, shambling in a half-crouch, cursing. Cassidy pushed past Logan and leapt up onto the man’s back, sending him staggering forward. He fell, rolled, and Logan shouted in wordless dismay even as he sprinted toward them. They both tumbled off the roof together, and Logan grunted as he dove and slid, making a wild grab for Cassidy’s wrist. He snagged it, and Woody scrabbled uselessly at Cassidy’s legs before he fell, screaming, ninety stories to his death below. Logan dug his sneakered toes into the tarred roof as his belly began to inch over the edge. As he looked down at Cassidy, the boy’s face went strangely blank and his grip loosened.

“Cassidy! No! Give me your other hand! Please!” Logan shouted. Cassidy’s eyes tipped up and stared into Logan’s own, and the loneliness and despair Logan saw there made his heart squeeze with sympathy. Why hadn’t anyone noticed what had been going on? Why hadn’t he? “Come on, please!”

“What for?” Cassidy began to cry again. “Just let me go!”

“No! Woody is dead now! You don’t have to be afraid of him anymore! He can’t hurt you or anyone else! You’re a survivor, Cassidy, like I am! You can keep on surviving knowing that Woody Goodman is burning in hell for what he did because you beat him! If you let go now, you’ll always be the kid who killed himself over Woody Goodman! Do you really want to give his memory that kind of power, or do you want to go on and let everyone know what a bastard he really was? Now come on, give me your damn hand!”

Cassidy lowered his gaze, and for one terrible moment, Logan thought he would simply let go and vanish into the darkness. Finally, he raised his other hand and Logan grabbed onto it hard as he pulled himself back and tugged the boy back with him until they both tumbled onto the roof together much in the same way Cassidy and Woody had gone over, in a tangle of arms and legs. Cassidy sat up and hid his face in his hands as he began to sob hoarsely, his knees drawing to his skinny chest as he rocked back and forth. Logan reached out and touched his shoulder.

“Cassidy. Hey . . .”

The boy continued to sob, and Logan knew there were no words he could offer to ease that kind of pain. He finally slipped his arms around the thin, shaking shoulders and let Cassidy cry against him as far below, in the distance, sirens began to sound.

 

Once the news broke about Woody Goodman’s death and the truth about the bus crash came out, Logan didn’t see much of either Casablancas brother. They both missed several days of school, and once they returned, Cassidy seemed even more isolated than he’d been before, and Dick didn’t seek out his usual circle of friends. Logan saw them once, sitting together behind the football bleachers, eating take-out pizza during lunch period. Logan couldn’t imagine how Beaver could even look at his brother after what had happened. It hadn’t been Dick’s fault, not really, but Logan thought that Dick could have more of an effort to stop Woody rather than allow himself and Cassidy to be blackmailed.

Then again, “effort” wasn’t exactly in the Dick Casablancas dictionary. This proved to be true when Logan answered a knock at his door at the Neptune Grand two weeks later to find Cassidy standing there.

“Hey Be—uh, Cassidy. What’s up?” Logan asked, and Cassidy rubbed the back of his neck.

“Uhm, well, Dick is gone. He took off to stay with dad in the Caymans. Said he’d keep in touch, but somehow I doubt it.”

“Sorry to hear that. You want to come in?” Logan asked as he opened the door a bit wider. Cassidy lifted a shoulder and stepped inside.

“It’s just kind of weird. There were times I wished that Dick and my dad would just go away, and now they have. My mom lives in Frisco with her other kids, and Kendall doesn’t come around anymore—not that I especially want her to.” Cassidy sat down on the big leather couch in front of the TV. “I don’t blame Dick for taking off. We tried to pretend like none of it happened, but it was always in the room with us. He told me he was sorry and I guess he was.” Cassidy’s grey eyes lifted to Logan’s brown ones. “That day at the house, when you were in my room . . . you knew, didn’t you.”

“Yeah, I knew. I was trying to help.”

“That’s the other reason I came here. I wanted to say thanks.” Cassidy rubbed his hands on his thighs. “You saved my life up on the roof.”

“Well,” Logan glanced away and scratched at his left ear. “I had signed this ‘no dirtbags’ ordinance when I was deputy mayor and I wanted to make sure it was being upheld—”

“That’s not what I mean,” Cassidy interrupted. "I mean that stuff you said about being a survivor. You were right. I mean . . . yeah, everyone pretty much knows what happened and it’s hard to deal with the stares and the whispers, but hey, this is Neptune, right? I figure I’ll only be the flavor of the month for so long before the next big scandal comes along.”

“Big scandals are what this city is made of. I think it’s in our constitution or something.” Logan regarded the skinny kid thoughtfully. “So . . . thanks for the thanks, and you’re welcome. Dick was always a good friend, and you’re . . . you know, you’re a good guy too, dude.” He glanced over at his Playstation. “Looks like I’ve lost my Halo partner, though.”

“Dick wasn’t the only one who could play,” Cassidy said with a shy, almost hopeful smile. Logan cocked a brow.

“A Halo partner whose butt I could always kick.”

“Well,” Cassidy said as he scratched a hand through his hair, “you’re kind of out of luck there since I’ve got one of the highest online scores in the whole state and I’m pretty much undefeated locally . . .”

Logan rolled his eyes and then smiled as he sat down next to Cassidy.

“Put your M16 where your mouth is, kiddo,” he said as he handed Cassidy a controller. Cassidy grinned. It struck Logan how he was the polar opposite of Dick in every way—quiet where Dick was boisterous, pale where Dick was tan, small and slender where he was athletic, his hair curly and light brown where Dick’s was bleach-blonde and straight. The biggest difference, though, was that there was a sweetness to Cassidy that Dick never had possessed, a sweetness that Logan felt himself responding to. He had always had a protective streak in him a mile long, and if he had ever seen anyone who needed protecting, it was Cassidy.

 _Dick dropped the ball on his little brother, but maybe I can pick it up,_ Logan thought to himself as he started up the Playstation. As the game began, Cassidy shifted a bit closer to Logan and they sat shoulder to shoulder as the glow of the TV screen illuminated Cassidy’s bright smile.

THE END


End file.
